St. Cloud wants to share senior center costs

Nick Hayes shoots a basket Monday at the Whitney Recreation Center. Residents of multiple area cities use the senior center and its gym facilities.(Photo: Gustin Schumacher, gschumache@stcloudtimes.com)

Looking to close the gap for funding the Whitney Senior Center, St. Cloud council members want to go to area cities to contribute more.

About 37 percent of the senior center users are from outside St. Cloud, but only 1.3 percent of its funding comes from cities and counties outside St. Cloud. The St. Cloud City Council discussed the issue Monday; no action was taken.

The issue was raised earlier this month when council members discussed repairing the Whitney Senior Center ceiling. At that time, council members asked administrative staff to go to the area cities and counties to get help paying for the repair costs.

On Monday, council members agreed that area cities need to contribute more to the senior center's operations. St. Cloud makes up 77.4 percent of the center's funding.

Waite Park, Sartell, Sauk Rapids and Sherburne County make up a combined 1.3 percent of its funding. Remaining funding comes from grants, donations and class fees. Those contributions come in at between $500 and $2,250 each per year.

"We are funding a facility that is used by a number of other communities," council member George Hontos said. "There's an issue of fairness."

Council President Jeff Goerger said the St. Cloud residents are subsidizing the nonresident users.

"It's got to get closer," he said of the funding difference.

Council members said they wanted to get area cities to contribute, rather than charging higher fees to nonresidents.

Fees cover the cost of supplies and instructors.

The council directed the city's administrative staff to figure out dollar amounts that would make sense for the area cities.

They also asked to see if they could get more accurate numbers for how many nonresidents use the facility. Whitney is a nonmember-based organization and doesn't collect personnel data. The numbers given Monday are based only on those participating in fee-based programming.

Council member John Libert said it's also up to nonresident users to go to their councils and ask them to contribute. Those area cities aren't providing the type of programing that the Whitney Senior Center is, he said.

"It's time to do something," he said.

Follow Kari Petrie on Twitter @karipetrie.

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